Passed PMP exam on Dec 19th 2012 on my first attempt

Submitted by pmpass2012 on Thu, 12/20/2012 - 03:03

   Hello Everybody, 


 

Yay. Passed PMP exam in my first attempt with proficieny in all areas.

 

Honestly when i was writing the exam, i was not sure if i would even clear the exam.  For a lot of questions it seemed to me, there were more than 2 correct answers. With my 2 year old hyperactive toddler, the exam preparation was not easy. Thanks to my husband for putting up with me over the past few months.

 

Exam Experience:  I had scheduled the exam for 11.30 a.m today. Reached about 10.45 a.m. Was allowed to take the exam right away. I did create a braindump, during the first 15 min tutorial time. But i did not refer it a lot when i was actually writing the exam. It took me over 1 hr for the first 50 questions. After that i hurried up and finished answering rest of the questions  in 3 hrs. I had marked up a lot of questions for review. In the last hour, i went over the questions i had marked up for review. I did not take any break during the exam. Once the exam ended, breathlessly waited for the result. Was relieved to find out that i passed.

 

Exam Preparation and application part: First let me go over what i didnt do right. 

 

I started my exam prep around July of this year, I signed up with skillsoft for pmp education hours. With my toddler it was not possible to open up the computer to watch the tutorials, when he was awake. Added to that we have ubuntu operating system in our laptop, and skillsoft did not work on that platform. Also it did not work on kindle as well. I wish i had signed up for PM prepcast, which would have been much easier to listen to on my smartphone/kindle. Honestly i felt skillsoft to be very dry and did not learn a whole lot from the 35 contact hrs. 

 

Once i finished my 35 hours, i kept postponing my application for over 2 months worrying  what would happen if i my application got picked up for an audit. After i submitted my application, i received an email in a few days from PMI that they could not understand from my job decription if i had performed Project management related job functions. I work in the clinical trial industry and had described my job description accordingly in simple terms. After receiving the email to clarify my job description, i resubmitted my application with the job description rewritten in PMI terms. eg: instead of saying received sign offs from committee members wrote something like received sign offs from stakeholders etc. 

 

My application got approved, but got picked up for audit. I had to get all the workexperience verified which took a little while. So finally submitted all the verifications in late oct and my application was cleared. 

 

My exam prep was on and off. After finsihing my 35hrs of PDU i completely stopped studying. Again after submitting my application, i restrated my prep with headfirst. But stopped again when i was asked for further clarification and when my application was picked up for audit.

 

I scheduled the exam almost 6 weeks later since i had gone through a lot of hiccups during the application process, i wanted to clear the exam for sure. 

 

Exam Prep: Tried to read PMBOK while i was doing my skillsoft contact hours. Was extremely depressed and felt i never could clear the exam. So finally got headfirst pmp and that really helped me understand the basics. Understood a lot of confusing concepts like from brainbok. Then i read Rita and then finally Pmbok. Took a few free online sample exams. Looked up for more tips on pmzilla. Was scoring around 75% on the exams. Was making a lot of silly mistakes. I revised the ITTOs of all the processes a lot of times. Since i was quite thorough with the ITTOs, felt i could answer a lot of questions without thinking too much. 

 

My 2 cents: Submit ur PMP application immediately after completing your 35 hours of education. Provide only 4500 hrs of experience and if possible only current experience  since u dont have to follow up with all the previous employers for verification in case application gets picked up for audit. I found getting my application verified through my current employer a lot easier. 

 

Start out your preparation with a book that is easy to understand like headfirst pmp. Schedule the exam in 4 to 6 weeks from the time ur application is approved since it forces you to study. I felt i should have preponed my exam i was bored with studying during the last couple of weeks. 

 

Wishing you all the very best on your PMP journey

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PMP Exam Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learnt.
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admin

Thu, 12/20/2012 - 03:49

Congratulations on your PMP. Glad to know you got good tips here. Do post the not so obvious ones

 

REgards

uglory

Thu, 12/20/2012 - 05:17

 Congrats!. More grease to your elbows!!.

keylopatra

Thu, 12/20/2012 - 19:41

That's wonderful, congrats! Which mock tests did you take online? Did you do over 6000 questions like some are suggesting? Do you think you could have passed with only reading Rita and not the PMBOK? Did you memorize all the ITTO??

pmpass2012

Fri, 12/21/2012 - 00:30

 I think u cant just pass with Rita. There are a lot of ques on ITTOs on the exam and for that u need PMBOK. I took the following free online tests- lehmann, heahfirst, pmstudy, ferndales. i never could do a timed 4 hr test because of my son. 

Before taking the sample tests, i did not read PMBOK thoroughly. In the sample exam i found a lot of ques from every nook and corner of PMBOK- e.g. what is constructive change, data date , is scope creep unmanagable or uncontrollable sort of ques. While reviewing the ans i went back and read the chapters in PMBOK. Rather than just studying, i think u learn things even better when u are reviewing questions that u answered incorrectly.

During the exam there were a lot of ITTO ques, what happens next (remembering Rita's concept abt analyzing impact, figuring out options, letting sponsor know etc helped) type ques, lot of ques abt whether u shld fasttrack or crash, 10- 15 problem. Not all Problems were straight forward. i had to calculate ev pv from percentage work completed or first calculate percwntage of work completed from bac and amt of money spent in x months.

All the best

sspawar

Fri, 12/21/2012 - 01:14

Congratulations! PMPPASSED!


Your LL has many valuable tips.


One of them,


My 2 cents: Submit ur PMP application immediately after completing your 35 hours of education. Provide only 4500 hrs of experience and if possible only current experience since u don’t have to follow up with all the previous employers for verification in case application gets picked up for audit. I found getting my application verified through my current employer a lot easier.


I also heard from someone that, PMI assess test score with a negative weightage with respect to the number of years of experience of the test takers. I don't believe that it would be a criterion. But with the prospect mentioned by you, new candidates should follow this tip.It really helpful, to those who are more experienced and believes in showing it in their submittals.


For 35hours PDU, class learning is more helpful for the beginners, than any webinar/e learning. I also have gone through Skillsoft educations. I experienced its mock test and question bank are good and equivalent of any standard courseware.


In last, I want to say thanks to your toddler a hyper action hero that he helped you not to sit for 4 hrs in any mock test, otherwise you might be got more than 5Ps.


Regards


SSp


 

pmpass2012

Wed, 12/26/2012 - 03:55

 Ha ha. Thanks for the kind words. PMP is doable with full time job and hyperactive kid:-)